1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording apparatus.
2. Related Art
An ink jet type recording apparatus, which is an example of a liquid ejecting apparatus, includes a discharge head having a nozzle hole for discharging an ink, driving means that causes an ink to be discharged through the nozzle hole (for example, a piezoelectric vibrator, and a heating element), and control means that controls the driving means in accordance with data. A supply of an ink to the nozzle hole is performed by, for example, an ink cartridge, an ink supply chamber that receives an ink from the ink cartridge, and an ink supply channel that connects the ink supply chamber to the nozzle hole. The ink cartridge is commonly replaceable.
As an example of the discharge head, there is a discharge head that includes a nozzle plate provided with a nozzle hole, and a vibration plate disposed in parallel with the nozzle plate and vibrated by a piezoelectric element, and that discharges an ink by changing the volume of a pressure chamber formed between the nozzle plate and the vibration plate using vibration of the vibration plate (for example, JP-A-8-020107).
JP-A-8-020107 discloses that when the apparatus is placed in a low temperature environment, if an ink starts to become frozen from the nozzle plate side, and the freezing reaches the vibration plate, the vibration plate or the piezoelectric element may be damaged, and thus, an effort is made to suppress damage to the vibration plate or the piezoelectric element by adjusting the structure of the head, or a relative thermal capacity of a member to cause the ink to become frozen from the vibration plate side.
However, recently, definition required for an image of the ink jet recording apparatus has been highly increased, and the discharge head has been refined and densified in accordance with this increase. Therefore, it is difficult to prevent the damage or the like caused by the freezing of ink in the discharge head only by improving the structure or a material of the discharge head as the technology disclosed in JP-A-8-020107. In other words, it is difficult to make the temperature difference within the head due to miniaturization of the head, and it is difficult to control the freezing starting point of the ink.